Spencer v. State, A16A0118
Decision Date | 09 June 2016 |
Docket Number | A16A0118 |
Citation | 337 Ga.App. 360,787 S.E.2d 320 |
Parties | Spencer v. The State. |
Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Thomas James Thomas, for Appellant.
John Andrew Pipkin III, Sol.-Gen., William Barney Kennedy, Asst. Sol.-Gen., for Appellee.
, Judge.
After a jury trial, Mellecia Spencer was convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol to the extent she was a less safe driver and possessing an open container of alcohol in the passenger area of her vehicle. She appeals, arguing that the trial court erred allowing the arresting officer to testify that Spencer's performance on the horizontal gaze nystagmus (“HGN”) test proved a specific numeric blood-alcohol content level. However, the officer did not give such testimony, and instead properly testified that generally an HGN test showing four out of six clues indicates impairment. Spencer also claims that the trial court erred in giving a burden-shifting jury charge on reasonable doubt, but we find no error as the court correctly gave the suggested pattern jury instruction on reasonable doubt. Accordingly, we affirm.
Construed in the light most favorable to the verdict, see Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979)
, the evidence showed that at approximately 2:00 a.m. on January 31, 2015, a police officer stopped Spencer for driving a car with a non-working headlight. Upon approaching the vehicle, the officer smelled the odor of alcohol, saw that Spencer was wearing a paper bracelet from a drinking establishment with the word “Budweiser” on it, saw a plastic cup with an apparent alcoholic drink in the car's center console, and observed that Spencer's speech was slurred. Spencer initially denied drinking any alcoholic beverages, but then admitted drinking a margarita. Spencer's performance on field sobriety tests, including the presence of four out of six clues on the HGN test, indicated impairment. Spencer refused to take a roadside breathalyzer test or the state-administered test for blood-alcohol content.
The jury found Spencer guilty of the DUI and open container offenses, and the trial court denied her motion for a new trial. This appeal followed.
Bravo v. State , 304 Ga.App. 243, 247–248, 696 S.E.2d 79 (2010)
(citations, punctuation and emphasis omitted).
Here, the officer did not identify a specific numeric blood-alcohol content level for Spencer based solely on her HGN results, and instead merely testified that generally, four out of six clues on the HGN shows that a blood-alcohol content exceeds the impairing level of 0.08. As this court has previously recognized, “[u]nder law enforcement guidelines, a score of four out of six clues on an HGN test constitutes evidence of impairment.” Parker v. State , 307 Ga.App. 61, 64, 704 S.E.2d 438 (2010)
(citation and punctuation omitted). Moreover, the officer's testimony in the instant case is similar to the...
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Spencer v. State
...conviction and sentence only as to the conviction for DUI. The Court of Appeals affirmed her conviction in Spencer v. State, 337 Ga. App. 360, 787 S.E.2d 320 (2016) ( Spencer I ). We granted this petition for certiorari to consider whether the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the tria......
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Spencer v. State
...Thomas, for Appellant.John Andrew Pipkin III, William Barney Kennedy, for Appellee. McFADDEN, Presiding Judge.In Spencer v. State, 337 Ga. App. 360, 787 S.E.2d 320 (2016), this court affirmed the appellant's conviction of driving under the influence of alcohol, finding in Division 1 that th......